iron is hot!" I detected a note of triumph in her voice; if she
could say that she had got Mrs. van Tuiver to take up
child-labour--that indeed would be a feather to wear!

"I will tell you all I can," I said. "That's my work in the world."

"Take Mrs. Abbott away with you," said the energetic hostess, to
Sylvia; and before I quite understood what was happening, I had
received and accepted an invitation to drive in the park with Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver. In her role of _dea ex machina_ the hostess
extricated me from the other guests, and soon I was established in a
big new motor, gliding up Madison Avenue as swiftly and silently as
a cloud-shadow over the fields. As I write the words there lies
upon my table a Socialist paper with one of Will Dyson's vivid
cartoons, representing two ladies of the great world at a reception.
Says the first, "These social movements are becoming _quite_ worth
while!" "Yes, indeed," says the other. "One meets such good
society!"

7. Sylvia's part in this adventure was a nobler one than mine,
Seated as I was in a regal motor-car, and in company with one
favoured of all the gods in the world, I must have had an intense
conviction of my own saintliness not to distrust my excitement. But
Sylvia, for her part, had nothing to get from me but pain. I talked
of the factory-fires and the horrors of the sugar-refineries, and I
saw shadow after shadow of suffering cross her face. You may say it
was cruel of me to tear the veil from those lovely eyes, but in such
a matter I felt myself the angel of the Lord and His vengeance.

"I didn't know about these things!" she cried again. And I found it